A state board reports more than 60 percent of eligible government employees have already cast ballots in “recertification” votes for their local bargaining unit.

A new state law requires a vote to recertify union representation for a bargaining unit before contracts talks with public employees may begin. Eighty-seven percent of the educators covered by 13 contracts negotiated by Iowa State Education Association members voted in September — and the recertification votes passed overwhelmingly.

Voting began this past Tuesday for 477 more bargaining units. Those units represent more than 33,000 employees who work for state and local governments. The Iowa Public Employment Relations Board reports more than 20,000 of those workers voted in just the first two days of voting.

The voting is being conducted online or over the phone. Votes may be cast through October 24.

As Republican Kim Reynolds campaigns for a full, four-year term as governor, she is highlighting the work of the first Republican-led state legislature in 20 years. It’s all work that turned into the laws Terry Branstad approved before resigning and handing the governorship over to his lieutenant governor in late May.

“Promises made and promises delivered,” Reynolds said Saturday. “This past session we seized the opportunity to build on the success over the past six years, to build on the policies that we put in place to strengthen the economy, to improve our quality of life and to streamline and shrink our government.”

Today is the 118th day Reynolds has been governor. Branstad signed into law all the bills passed by the 2017 legislature before he resigned on May 23.

“Hardworking taxpayers, they found a place at the table,” Reynolds said. “We made it more affordable to own and operate a business. In fact, it was the most pro-jobs legislative session in two decades.”

Reynolds was among the speakers at this past weekend’s Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition fundraiser in Des Moines.

AFSCME Council 61 — the union that represents the largest share of state workers — weighed in on twitter. A tweet advised the labor movement to “pay attention” to what Reynolds was saying and accused her of “bragging about what was done to Iowa workers” by the 2017 legislature.

Iowa GOP chairman Jeff Kaufmann, another speaker at Saturday’s event (audio here), praised the Republican legislators who were in the crowd.

“That last session was nothing short of political courage public and simple on every front and, ‘Thank you!’ to those legislators and, ‘Thank you!’ to our governor,” Kaufmann said, drawing applause from the crowd.

About 600 Christian conservatives attended the event, which was held in Des Moines.

Governor Kim Reynolds is giving a thumbs down to proposed tuition hikes at the three state universities in Ames, Cedar Falls and Iowa City.

“That is too much. There is no way that Iowa families could afford a seven percent increase over five years,” Reynolds said this morning. “And so I would encourage the Regents to, you know, let’s take a look at what’s manageable and keep in the forefront doing everything we can do to keep higher education costs, post-secondary costs down”

The presidents of the three public universities have unveiled five-year-long tuition recommendations. At Iowa and Iowa State, the presidents recommend seven percent tuition hikes in each of the next five years.

The University of Northern Iowa’s president recommends a nearly 7 percent increase in the first year, but it would decline in each of the following years to a hike of just 3 percent in year five. Reynolds pointed out it’ll be up to the nine-member Board of Regents to make the final call.

“Now the Regents will take a look at what’s possible and what’s the right amount moving forward,” Reynolds said during a news conference on the state fairgrounds, “so their work is just getting started and I’m going to let them work through the process.”

The university presidents say their recommendations are based on the assumption the governor and legislators will not recommend increased state support of the schools in the next five years. Reynolds isn’t revealing whether she’ll recommend increasing state taxpayer support of the three universities next year.

“The legislature is going to do what the legislature is going to do and we’ll work closely with them,” Reynolds said, “but we’ll put our budget together and they’ll put theirs together.”

Reynolds has ’til the end of January to submit her proposed state budget plan to legislators. The governor told reporters this morning that university leaders should look to renegotiate the pay and benefit packages for campus staff and professors as a way to save money.

Former Governor Terry Branstad in February approved a new law that limits contract talks to just salaries, allowing the universities to shift more health care costs to employees.

“That gives the universities some flexibility to manage the resources,” Reynolds said, “and so there’s also some potential savings.”

In making her argument that seven percent tuition hikes are too high, Reynolds repeated her praise of the previous two-and-a-half year period when tuition was frozen at the schools. Critics, including former Iowa State University president Steven Leath, have argued freezing tuition earlier in the decade pushed his school to a financial “tipping point.”

Cedar Rapids Mayor and Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron Corbett says Governor Kim Reynolds is “going in the wrong direction” when it comes to the state’s finances.

Corbett is comparing Reynolds to Democratic Governor Chet Culver. Corbett is reminding Iowans that former Governor Terry Branstad and Reynolds called Culver “big debt Chet” when they ran against him in 2010.

Last month, Corbett accused Reynolds of committing a “mortal sin” in Republican ideology by using money from the state’s cash reserve to cover on-going expenses. The state’s budget situation is a liability to Reynolds in the 2018 election, according to Corbett.

Yesterday, Corbett spoke to a crowd in Cedar Rapids, emphasizing his plan to dramatically simplify Iowa’s income tax system with a so-called “flat tax” of three percent. Corbett is also calling for increasing the state sales tax by a penny, with three-eights of that increase to be used to address water quality issues. Corbett said there’s a need for “bold action” because Iowa’s economy and population aren’t growing fast enough.

A spokesman for Reynolds said the governor was in Washington, D.C. “fighting for Iowans” at a hearing on the Renewable Fuels Standard while Corbett was “playing political games” in Iowa.

Governor Kim Reynolds predicts there’ll be expanded ag trade to China in the years ahead, but Reynolds said this morning that Iowa exporters need to monitor how North Korea’s nuclear ambitions could impact trade with China.

“They are walking a fine line in China,” Reynolds said during an interview with Radio Iowa and The Cedar Rapids Gazette. “They’re sending troops to the border. They don’t want North Korea to have nuclear capability either, so they’re monitoring that.”

China also worries that if North Korea’s dictatorship topples, there would be a unified Korea under a democratic system of government. Reynolds returned to Iowa this past Friday after a trade mission to China that was solely focused on expanding shipments of Iowa agricultural products to China. Former Governor Terry Branstad hosted an event for the Iowa trade delegation at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. Reynolds was able to meet privately with Ambassador Branstad, too.

“I have complete confidence in him,” Reynolds said. “It’s a tough assignment. He recognizes that. It started with sending arms to Taiwan and some of the legislation that’s coming out of Washington, D.C., so he is continuing to balance the needs of the United States and working with China.”

This weekend President Trump tweeted that China had done “nothing” but talk about dealing with North Korea’s nuclear threat. Trump made the U.S. trade imbalance with China a major 2016 campaign issue and the president said in his Saturday tweet that “foolish past leaders” of the U.S. have allowed the Chinese “to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade.”

Governor Reynolds said she saw signs of progress on trade during her trip, including the Chinese decision to allow four new varieties of genetically-modified corn and soybeans into China.

“But we said we need to complete the other four. It was really important that we have some consistency, predictability, timeliness in the approval process and we said both on our part as well as their part because that’s what’s going to allow us to feed a growing world population,” Reynolds said. “They’re estimating that by 2020 they’ll have another 300-400 million Chinese that will move into the middle class.”

Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey was also part of the Iowa delegation that went to China this month. He said there’s “no way” to predict how the North Korean situation will “play out.”
“We’re hopeful that the North Korea tensions can get worked out and trade continues to improve with China,” Northey said during an interview after a meeting with the governor and the rest of the State Executive Council.

A group of Chinese students who’re in Iowa and plan to attend high schools and colleges here posed for pictures with Reynolds and Northey this morning in the governor’s office.

Governor Kim Reynolds spoke with reporters this morning from China where she hosted an Iowa reception along with representatives of most of the state’s commodities groups who are on the trade trip with her.

“We had about 150 people join us. It was a great opportunity for our commodity groups to meet with industry partners. We were blessed to have Ambassador (Terry) Branstad and his family join us for the reception tonight,”Reynolds says. Reynolds says they have also been visiting various agricultural operations in China.

“We had the opportunity to meet with the mayor of Shanghai and to continue to talk about partnerships and visit an aquaculture farm where the Iowa Soybean Association actually invested in technology to help with the production of the aquaculture at decreased cost and increased output,” according to Reynolds.

The governor says they talked about the reopening of the Chinese market to U.S. beef and how they want to continue to expand in that area. She says they also talked about export issues involving soybeans, corn and poultry.

“I think the group would share the sentiment that they felt that again progress had been made but that they needed to continue the dialogue to continue the resolution to continue moving opportunities forward,” Reynolds says.

Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey is also on the trade trip. Northey says having former Governor Terry Branstad take over as Ambassador to China makes a big difference in this trade mission. “And then to be able to see him absolutely totally engaged in his role as ambassador. He looks as natural as can be in that ambassador role. You realize how important it is for him to be in the position of this very important trading relationship and political relationship between the two biggest countries in the world — and then to have this great Iowa connection,” Northey says.

Northey says Branstad’s position and then having all the commodity groups together on the trip along with the governor has been a good thing. He says it has created many opportunities for conversations that they would probably not been able to have if they were traveling alone. Northey characterized the talks as “high level.”

He says the conversations have spanned many agricultural areas and that shows the importance being placed on agricultural trade from the federal level. “I also do believe that some of this that has been happening — whether its the biotech events, the beef trade, the rice opportunities that there are — rice isn’t going to impact a lot of Iowa farmers, but it certainly was movement toward better trade with China. Some of that is because the administration has pushed so hard to move some things that have been stuck for awhile,” Northey explains.

The conference call this morning happened at what was roughly 10 o’clock in the evening in China.

Governor Kim Reynolds is on her way to China today for a trade mission focused exclusively on promoting Iowa agriculture products.

“The trade mission’s focus is to grow our exports and to improve Iowa’s economy,” Reynolds said recently. “Right now one in five jobs are attributable to international trade and actually one in six jobs is attributable to agriculture and ag-related industries.”

The leaders of nine commodity groups have joined Reynolds in China. Craig Floss, CEO of the Iowa Corn Growers Association, is among them.

“For some of our commodities China is a developed market,” Floss said during a news conference announcing the trade mission. “For others, it’s a new market and for others we have a number of barriers that still need to be resolved, but with 20 percent of the world’s population and only 10 percent of the world’s arable land, it is absolutely essential that China have imports for a stable food supply and that makes China a critical market for all of Iowa agriculture.”

More than 1.4 billion people live in China and China’s growing middle class already is larger than the entire U.S. population.

This is the sixth time Reynolds has traveled to China on behalf of Iowa, but her first since former Governor Terry Branstad became U.S. Ambassador to China.

“I can’t underscore how important and how fortunate we are to have the relationships that we do with the leadership in China,” Reynolds said during a news conference in her statehouse office.

Reynolds said the Chinese consider the Iowa “brand” to be “reliable and safe” — whether it’s attached to a company or a commodity. In addition to the Corn Growers, representatives of the Iowa Cattlemen’s Association, Iowa Pork Producers, the Iowa Soybean Association and the Iowa Farm Bureau will be on the trip, along with commodity groups representing Iowa’s poultry industry. The group will visit Beijing, Shanghai and Xian before returning on July 28.

More than 650 dealers are now licensed to sell fireworks in Iowa, but about a third of the required inspections were not completed before selling began.

Barbara Edmondson, an attorney for the Iowa Department of Public Safety, says it was a challenge getting the licensing program up and running once the governor signed the bill May 9.

“There was a very short window for selling,” Edmondson says. “We wanted to get licenses issued to the extent we could and to ensure that there was a maximum opportunity for people to be successful with this.”

The new law made fireworks sales legal in Iowa on June 1. The State Fire Marshal’s Office spent more than $110,000 reviewing and inspecting the sites where fireworks have been sold. However, state officials say there wasn’t enough time or money to finish the job, so some provisional licenses for fireworks sales were issued.

Retailers are charging the state sales tax on the commercial-grade fireworks that are now legal to sell in Iowa. License fees have brought in nearly a quarter of a million dollars in state revenue.

Fireworks sales are to end this Saturday, July 8. Another period for sales and use of fireworks — will open in December and last through early January, but fireworks may only be sold from permanent locations. Tent sales were allowed during the June 1-July 8 timeframe.

A new report on the state’s finances seems to indicate Republican Governor Kim Reynolds not only will be forced to dip into savings, but she may have to call legislators back this fall to balance the state budget.

The last state fiscal year ended Friday, June 30. The Legislative Services Agency report indicates state tax collections during the past 12 months were below expectations by more than $104 million. The state budget was based on the higher projections, so steps must be taken to ensure the budget winds up in the black this fall when the books are formally closed on fiscal year 2017.

Jeff Robinson, a senior fiscal analyst with the Legislative Services Agency, said the state did collect more in taxes in June.

“But it wasn’t as positive as needed to keep up with the estimate,” Robinson said.

Iowa governors have the authority to transfer up to $50 million from the state’s “Economic Emergency Fund” to cover a deficit. Some payments due the state during the just-concluded fiscal year have not been made, though, and there’s the possibility some agencies have unspent funds that will boost the bottom line as well. However, if the deficit is larger than $50 million when all calculations are completed in September, the governor will be forced to call the legislature back into special session to withdraw more money from reserve accounts to put the budget in the black.

The state constitution requires a balanced state budget.

State tax projections were way off because sales tax payments were significantly lower than expected. Robinson said the state did see growth in corporate income taxes as well as personal income tax payments to the state.

“But sales tax was essentially flat year-over-year,” Robinson said. “We got $1.7 million worth of sales tax growth over those 12 months, so that was a surprise and that caused the shortfall this year.”

The governor’s budget chief confirms the state has a budget dilemma for the fiscal year that ended last Friday, June 30, but Iowa Department of Management director Dave Roderer’s calculations indicate the state’s “cash receipts” for the past 12 months fell $76 million below projections.

“Tthere’s still a lot of checking that needs to be done before we will know for certain how the fiscal year has ended,” Roederer said.

Roederer’s analysis is based on “cash receipts” and, for example, does not include estimates of any outstanding tax refunds the state must pay. The Legislative Services Agency report is based on “total net receipts.” Roederer said Reynolds “could very well” be able to manage the budget problem on her own, without calling legislators back for a special session this fall.

Democrats in the legislature say the situation shows Republican budget policy is “out of whack” because of too many tax “give-aways.”

A member of the Boone City Council for more than 13 years is challenging Kim Reynolds in the 2018 Republican Primary for governor. Forty-six-year-old Steven Ray has worked in Iowa law enforcement since he was 17.

“I just see a lot of things in government, working in government every day, that I really think need a serious makeover,” Ray said during an interview with Radio Iowa.

Ray put himself through college working as a dispatcher for the Boone County Sheriff and he currently oversees Iowa State Patrol communications centers in Cedar Falls, Cedar Rapids and Des Moines. Ray’s grandfather was the long-time sheriff of Story County.

“I was involved in his campaigns as a young person, been involved in a number of campaigns over the years,” Ray said. “…This is not a decision to run for governor that just popped up overnight. This is something that I’ve been working on probably well over two years, quietly in the background.”

Ray has been a state employee since 1995. Ray said he would have vetoed the bill former Republican Governor Terry Branstad approved in February that drastically reduced collective bargaining rights for government workers.

“Just to say that: ‘Public employees are a drain on our budget and we’ve got to have smaller government and smaller government means less employees,’ o.k. If that’s the route you want to go, that is fine,” Ray said. “But I can tell you there are essential functions out there from health and human services to public safety that are not getting filled. We have a lot of people that are working hard, working tremendous amounts of overtime, being overtired. They’re just not getting the recognition that they need.”

Ray’s private email address uses the moniker potus2024, a reference to the presidential campaign that starts in about seven years.

“I’ve had that email for probably 20 years. Kind of funny when I was on my Facebook page…a lot of people there I went to school with and they all said: ‘You know, everybody said he was going to be president,’ and I said: ‘Well, one ting at a time,'” Ray said, with a laugh. “That’s a lofty goal. Many people try, but few get there. Do I think I could be a good president? Absolutely. I really think I do and I think I’d be a good governor first for the people of Iowa, I really do, so that’s my concentration now.”

Ray filed the paperwork last week and he’s an official candidate for governor. Ray is planning to hold a rally in Boone in late August to formally kick off his campaign. Ray is joining Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett in challenging Governor Kim Reynolds’ bid for a four-year term as governor.